SOUTH WESTERN MUSTANGS GRIDIRON 2008-11

By Bill Engelhardt
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Last Friday evening, October 31, the Mustangs of South Western ended their 2008 season with a visit to the Colonials of New Oxford and soared to a 35-0 shut out. The Colonials punted on their first possession and the Mustangs drove 53-yards in three plays. Zac Scott ripped off a 13-yard run, J. R. Mummert added 3-yards, and the drive ended with a beautiful 34-yard touchdown pass from David Sager to Chris Helwig. Zak Kruger’s extra point kick put the Mustangs up 7-0 at the 7:18 mark in the first quarter and the Mustangs never looked back.

The Colonials went three and out and punted on their next possession and this time the Mustangs drove 51-yards in four plays. Mummert carried twice for 11-yards, Jeb Shipley once for 3-yards, and David Sager launched a 37-yard touchdown pass to Drew Sneeringer. Kruger’s extra point kick upped the score to 14-0 at the 3:55 mark of the first quarter.

The Colonials again went three and out and punted and the Mustangs drove 48-yards in six plays. The drive featured a 37-yard pass from David Sager to Scott and ended with a 7-yard touchdown strike from Sager to Sneeringer. Kruger’s extra point kick made the score 21-0 with 11:55 to go in the half.

The Colonials punted again on their next possession and the Mustangs drove 66-yards in seven plays. The drive featured a 17-yard pass from David Sager to his cousin Levi Sager, and ended with a 39-yard touchdown strike to Kyle Mahorney from David Sager. Kruger’s extra point kick upped the score to 28-0 with 7:14 to go in the first half.

The Mustangs went three and out and punted to open the second half. The Colonials put on their best drive of the game, going from their own 19-yard line to the Mustangs 14-yard line in 15 plays. The drive featured a 10-yard pass from Steve Sanders to Robert Laughman and a 29-yard pass from Mike Bivens to Zack Groft. The drive ended when Jake Shaffer recovered a fumble for the Mustangs at their own 14-yard line.

Two plays later David Sager tossed another pass to his cousin Levi Sager, who galloped 83-yards for a touchdown. Kruger’s extra point kick closed out the scoring at 35-0 in favor of the Mustangs with 1:27 to go in the third quarter.

Jake Myers led the Mustangs defense with 14 tackles, followed by Derek Supel with 12, Drew Sneeringer with 10, Alex Berwager and Chris Helwig with 8 tackles each, Brandon Nicastro with 7, Colby Fuhrman with 6, Zac Scott with 4, Adam Day, Jake Shaffer and Andrew Sells with 3 tackles each, Jordan Gall and Levi Sager with 2 tackles each, and Curvin Boehler, Chris Houser and Kyle Mahorney with 1 tackle each. Jake Shaffer recovered a fumble, Supel recorded 2 sacks, and Boehler, Helwig, Scott, and Jake Myers each recorded a sack for the Mustangs. Sneeringer was credited with 3 pass hurries, Myers was credited with 2, and Gall and Scott were each credited with 1, for the Mustangs.

Levi Sager returned 1 kickoff for 31-yards and 2 punts for 17-yards, with the longest going for 10-yards, and Chris Helwig returned 1 punt for no-yards for the Mustangs. Levi Sager returned 11 punts for 124-yards and Helwig returned 13 for 94-yards for the season. Helwig returned 19 kickoffs for 468-yards for the season, the only kickoff returner to exceed 100-yards. Zak Kruger kicked off 5 times for 276-yards, including 1 touchback, and kicked 5 extra points in the game. Kruger kicked off 44 times for 2,304 yards, including 9 touchbacks, for the season. He also kicked 26 extra points and 2 field goals for the season. Kyle Mahorney kicked off twice for the season for 96-yards. Jake Myers punted 1 time for 31-yards. Myers punted 37 times for 1,216-yards and a 32.87-yard average for the season for the Mustangs.

Adam Day, Colby Fuhrman, Jordan Gall, Chris Helwig, Kyle Mahorney, Jake Myers, Brandon Nicastro, Zac Scott, Andrew Sells, Jake Shaffer, Drew Sneeringer, Derek Supel, and Wes Trostle manned the offensive and defensive line and linebacker positions, with assistance from Curvin Boehler, Chris Houser, Brandon Myers, Ben Shultz, and Ray Sites. Alex Berwager, Jimmy Nicklas and Levi Sager patrolled the secondary, with assistance from Larry Bowen, James Finnegan, Kyle King, Tyrell McCleary and Ryan Sexton, for the Mustangs.

The Mustangs gained 171-yards rushing and 276-yards passing for a total of 447-yards of offense. J. R. Mummert led the Mustangs rushing attack with 11 carries for 53-yards, followed by Mike Brant with 6 for 36, Jeb Shipley with 3 for 32, Zac Scott with 6 for 29, Chris Helwig with 4 for 11, Levi Sager with 2 for 8, and David Sager with 1 for 2-yards. Quarterback David Sager completed 8 of 16 passes for 276-yards and 5 touchdowns, 2 for 100-yards to his cousin Levi Sager (including an 83-yard touchdown), 3 for 66-yards to Drew Sneeringer (including touchdowns of 37 and 7-yards), 1 for 39-yards and a touchdown to Kyle Mahorney, 1 for 37-yards to Scott, and 1 for 34-yards and a touchdown to Helwig, for the Mustangs.

The Colonials gained 77-yards rushing and 56-yards passing for a total offense of 133-yards. Mike Bivens led the Colonials rushing attack with 12 carries for 47-yards, followed by Nick Rebert with 13 for 26, James Eline with 4 for 8-yards, and Steve Sanders with 8 for minus 4-yards. Bivens completed 3 of 8 passes for 38-yards and Sanders completed 2 passes for 18-yards for the Colonials. Zack Groft caught 4 passes for 46-yards and Robert Laughman caught 1 pass for 10-yards for the Colonials. Ed Dema recovered a fumble for the Colonials.

The 93 member 9-time Cavalcade of Bands Champions, Tournament of Bands Group IV Champion and US Scholastic Band Champion South Western Mustangs Marching Band put on a rousing half time show entitled “B-Classical” and featuring the energetic rhythms of Bernstein, passionate melodies of Borodini, and empowering harmony of Bizet. The 70 member New Oxford Colonials Marching Band put on a stirring post game show titled “Freedom,” featuring the tunes “The Star Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful,” “Chester,” and “Amazing Grace.” The 26 member strong Mustangs Cheer Leading squad and the Colonials Cheer Leaders were very impressive in rousing their fandom.

The Mustangs of South Western ended their season at 4-6-0 overall and 3-4-0 in York Adams Interscholastic Athletic Association (YAIAA) Division I league play.

Don Seidenstricker has a 173-77-1 (.692) record as coach of the Mustangs, who have a career record of 314-195-8. The results of the 517 games played in the history of the South Western Mustangs are a career .617 winning percentage and a .623 non-losing percentage.

I want to say a very special thank you to Richard Lupro for faithfully compiling the official Offensive, Special Teams and Scoring statistics for the Mustangs, and for inputting them, and the Defensive statistics, at the Max Preps web site very quickly each week so that they were always available for my use. And a very special thank you also goes to longtime Mustangs line coach Chuck Seidenstricker for providing vital Defensive statistics to me, and to Dick Lupro, for input to the web site, after reviewing game films on very short notice.

The 2008 edition of the Mustangs of South Western gave their fans lots of excitement and thrills. J. R. Mummert had 155 carries for 868-yards rushing and 7 touchdowns for the season, followed by Chris Helwig with 68 for 302-yards and 3 touchdowns, Jeb Shipley with 49 for 273-yards and 3 touchdowns, Zac Scott with 43 for 266-yards and 2 touchdowns, Mike Brant with 20 for 95-yards and 1 touchdown, Kyle King with 4 for 67-yards and a touchdown, Levi Sager with 10 for 45-yards, David Sager with 18 for 25-yards and 2 touchdowns, Tyrell McCleary with 3 for 25-yards, Jeff Hacker with 2 for 12-yards, Ryan Sexton with 1 for 3-yards, Ian Smith with 11 for minus 1-yard, and Jake Myers with 3 for minus 12-yards and 1 touchdown, and a team loss of 12-yards, for a net of 1,957 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns for the season.

Quarterback David Sager apparently tied the Mustangs school record with 5 touchdown passes, previously set by J. C. Laughlin against Delone Catholic in 2006 (I couldn’t ascertain what the record was but no one remembers anyone ever having 5 before these two instances). Laughlin completed 8 of 14 passes for 215-yards against Delone Catholic and Sager completed 8 of 16 passes for 276-yards, so Sager probably has the school record for passing yardage in a single game, but there seems to be no official record to confirm that.

David Sager completed 49 of 115 passes for 795-yards and 14 touchdowns for this season. Ian Smith completed 15 of 46 passes for 231-yards and Bobby Porter completed 1 pass for 42-yards and a touchdown. The season reception leaders were Drew Sneeringer with 16 receptions for 291-yards and 7 touchdowns, followed by Kyle Mahorney with 14 for 168-yards and 3 touchdowns, Chris Helwig with 10 for 150-yards and 1 touchdown, Levi Sager with 4 for 149-yards and 2 touchdowns, Jimmy Nicklas with 8 for 92-yards and 1 touchdown, Zac Scott with 3 for 80-yards and a touchdown, J. R. Mummert with 3 for 56-yards, Alex Berwager with 3 for 49-yards, and Jeb Shipley with 4 for 33-yards.

Jake Myers led the defense with 101 tackles. Other players with at least 50 tackles for the season were: Drew Sneeringer with 84, Andrew Sells with 61, Derek Supel with 61, Alex Berwager with 59, Brandon Nicastro with 58, Chris Helwig with 53, Zac Scott with 53, and Jake Shaffer with 51.

Derek Supel led the team in sacks with 5, followed by Kyle Mahorney with 4, Jake Myers with 3, Adam Day, Jake Shaffer, Andrew Sells and Drew Sneeringer with 2 each, and Curvin Boehler, Chris Helwig, Dan Laird, Zac Scott, and Ray Sites with 1 sack each. Jake Myers had 2 interceptions and Alex Berwager, Shaffer, Sells, and Sneeringer each had 1 interception for the season. Brandon Nicastro and Shaffer each recovered 2 fumbles and Ryan Sexton, Zac Scott, Sneeringer and Supel each recovered 1 fumble for the season.

The 2008 Mustangs represented their school and league honorably, played hard, never gave up, and were within striking distance of winning several games that just didn’t go their way in the end. They took the number 4 seed in class AAAA, York (William Penn), to the brink before falling 32-27. They have a great nucleus of returning players from the junior varsity and solid players coming up within the ranks. I can’t wait for next season to begin. Until then, GO MUSTANGS GO.